Hospitals, Furloughs and Ships…cont.

Now it started again, pumping out the stomach and x-rays. When they found nothing wrong with my stomach they sent me for six weeks to a spa in Karlsbad to recover. Now that was more like it! There it was very nice and I probably could have endured it much longer.

May 5th I reported back to Pola just in time to go right back on a two month long sick leave, again to the same farmers. But here too, conditions worseded day by day. Besides the vacationers and old people, there were no more men around. Only women and children and prisoners of war. That meant work, hard work. There was less and less food because the government had appropriated everything it could get its hands on. To get something from the hoarders you had to have some valuable things for exchange. Otherwise there was no chance for tobacco, sugar and so many other things only available from the hoarders. Only the devil knows where they keep getting that stuff.

My time was up and I had to report back to the navy barracks in Pola. XI Company sub-assignment to auxiliary service without weapons. I was transferred to the 6th Deck Company. I was a man in the battle for my beloved homeland, a decorated man. But because they could not afford the six Kronens a month for specialty pay, I was deemed unfit for regular military service with arms. I was assigned as a porter to the Hotel Riviera which was converted for officers and their families.

Every day, an abundance of Italian planes and day and night, the bark of anti-aircraft fire. A ring of balloons was lofted a thousand meters high in an effort to defend Pola against the Italian planes but they got bolder and the bombs exploded daily. One even dropped on the Navy Hospital despite the fact that it was marked with a large red cross on the roof.

To the devil and damnation! It got worse and worse and I could feel it. Nothing to chew, hardly any equipment. It can't go on like this too much longer. The Italian population is steadily getting more hostile to us "Germans." And, as time went by, even the Czechs and Hungarians started showing a more estranging behavior.

Szent Istvan has been sunk. About half the ship's crew had repotedly been lost. The Wien was hit by a torpedo from an Italian boat in the port of Triest and sank.

The hunger drives us to extreme measures. When we have absolutely nothing to eat, we sound the air-raid alarm. The residents of the hotel have to go down to the basement while we search their rooms for edibles. There is always something to be found. Hastily we eat it up and the air raid is over. But, as a result of the poor provisions, I contracted dysentery and again, I had to go to the hospital. This time to the No. IX Reserve Hospital Machine School. The cure was very simple. Castor oil alternating with "Tierkohle" whatever that is. For food, in the morning, hot tea without sugar. At noon, tea with sugar and in the evening again without. This continued until I could stand boiled clover. After the second part of this "diet" you were cured!

About four weeks lasted this "cure" and then I was hoping to go home again on furlough. But oh misery! I had not taken into account the times. When I returned to the hotel I found my duffle bag cut open and, except for the toiletry box, empty! I reported it to the supply officer hoping to get a new outfit. But what a shock. At first a sensless roaring accusation about selling my own things. He accused me of being a cheat and threatened to lock me up. I made no secret that I suspected him and hurled back into his face that he knew very well who did it and what happened to my things. To that he only answered, "Then why don't you just steal one from somebody else?"

So, now that my furlough had also gone to hell, I had to report to the barracks again. Since my last presence here it became even worse. Now there is nothing at all to be had. Only in the officer's mess hall they still lived and if you were lucky to have a friend in there, sometimes a bone could be thrown your way that you could chew off. Desertions were the order of the day. There were stories of the so-called "Green Kader" a band of robbers composed of deserters responsible for train facilities being blown up, supply tranport hold-ups, robberies, break-ins and murders.

One becomes tempted to scamper away. They have dropped two bombs on the big radio station of Pola and leveled it. It had been Austria's largest station. I was taken to the collection camp. Here we are all together. Invalids, sick men, penalized soldiers and others. They want to assign me to the guard unit but I cannot carry any arms. Even a little weight around my body makes me vomit right away.

So, what of way? What of victory? What do I care? I am just hungry…nothing else. At the reading of the daily orders they offered an option to report to the aircraft unit. Wait a minute! Possibly there could be something to eat and I decided to volunteer.

After three days of practice flying, or rather load testing of the new three-propeller hydroplane, we go for a doctor's examination to see if we are fit. Before it is my turn, one of the men reports that the plane had splashed down, probably an act of sabotage. Then it was my turn and I was immediately declared unfit. The staff doctor from the Szent. Istvan was here and he pounced on me. "Why did you report in the first place? You idiot!" I thought to myself "You can kiss my ass!"